Lifeless
by Cue's Quill
Summary: There was a time, she recalled, when she had asked herself a question. "Why is snow white?" Her subconscious had paused for a moment, as if stunned by the query. But finally, it had replied. "The same reason why water is clear."


**i. France, 1450**

She finds her mother in the fields, again.

The walk is still exhausting; terribly so. But she doesn't mind. There's too much she wants to talk about, after all.

Like how she's worried that the beatings are getting worse.

Like how she's worried that God might have forgotten her.

Like how she's worried that she, a slave, isn't truly human.

But eventually, her amber eyes settle on an all-encompassing declaration.

"Someday, Mama… I'm going to run away."

She imagines that the polished gravestone in front of her is expressing its silent approval.

 **ii. France, 1452**

She's skeptical, of course.

What the nun is offering her, after all, is beyond rational comprehension.

The Power of Kings? The ability to grant any wish? It all seems too surreal to be true. Too fantastical to be genuine.

Too perfect to be costless.

But the possibility of an unsuccessful escape makes her desperate. And as the cuts and bruises on her body threaten to overpower her, she humors the inquiry.

"I want… to be treated like a human being."

She tries to pretend that she doesn't see the slight smirk that graces the nun's features.

 **iii. France, 1453**

She doesn't quite believe it at first.

The nobleman isn't just showering her with gifts, he's absolutely _begging_ for her favor.

It's an experience she's never felt before. One that feels so satisfying that she almost drools.

The nun calls it Absolute Love. A power whose sole purpose is to shower its user with unconditional affection.

To her though, it's simply everything she's ever wanted – and more.

"So, do you like the power I gave you?"

When she responds, she forgets that she had asked for humanity, not control.

 **iv. France, 1461**

She wakes up to the stench of pooled blood.

The aroma is positively pungent. And when she notices the corpse in front of her, she almost screams in anguish toward the loss.

But she catches herself.

" _I'm sorry my child, but I'm afraid you've been fooled!"_

And cries in self-pity, instead.

 **v. France, 1462**

It's only fitting, she supposes, that they would turn on her.

Love, after all, is a bittersweet thing. And once it's lost, it can never truly be regained.

The stones that come crashing through the church windows speak of vengeance for a well-respected nun, who died at the hands of an escaped slave.

To her though, they only act as invitations for a new beginning.

A beginning for a girl who could _never_ be human, now.

 **vi. Spain, 1475**

She hears the violin before she sees him.

The song is simply too bewitching for her to ignore. The emotion. The passion. The love. It maintains qualities far more powerful than anything her geass had conjured before.

She doesn't realize that the piece is over until the applause breaks her from her reverie.

But as shy amber eyes meet confident amethyst, she knows one thing.

' _I'm sorry my child, but I'm afraid you've been fooled!'_

If it was within her power… she would do what that nun couldn't.

And make someone human.

 **vii. Spain, 1480**

She finds his eyes again, once she's been tied to the stake.

They're different now. The violet glint having been replaced by the blood red of geass. But the stare is, nevertheless, unmistakable.

She has so much she wants to tell those eyes. So much she wants to say.

Like how she'd never wanted this to happen.

Like how she'd never meant for his misfortune.

Like how she'd only wanted to help.

But those explanations are lost to the fires of the Inquisition.

Because to him, she's only a witch.

 **viii. Spain, 1480**

She wakes up to the stench of charred flesh.

Like blood, the aroma is positively pungent. But, even as her blackened skin grotesquely repairs its blemishes, she doesn't feel the need to scream.

Instead, she feels a sensation that's indescribable.

She believes it to be the need to try again.

 **ix. Portugal, 1501**

But she's beheaded.

 **x. The Holy Roman Empire, 1514**

Drowned.

 **xi. Florence, 1522**

And tortured.

 **xii. Venice, 1530**

Until finally, after her 4th candidate expresses his hatred for his power, she understands.

That sensation hadn't been the thirst for determination.

It had been the realization that her actions would always make others less than human.

' _I'm sorry my child, but I'm afraid you've been fooled!'_

She cries then. A combination of _both_ anguish and self-pity.

Because she hadn't been proving the nun wrong.

She'd been proving her right.

 **xiii. Russia, 1548**

Out of all the countries she's fled to, she likes Russia the most.

Not because of its arts.

Not because of its technology.

And certainly not because of its charms.

She simply likes it for the quiet. The spots between civilization that are blanketed by snow.

They make for good places to repent.

 **xiv. Russia, 1570**

She can't help but flinch at the sight of her visitor.

He's a disheveled man. Rancid smelling with bruises and cuts plastered onto his face.

But the amethyst eyes that are all too reminiscent of her first candidate are what truly grab her attention.

When he laughs nervously, explaining that he's a political exile, she cuts him off.

Because this time, she knows that she can have another chance to do something that that nun couldn't.

By _preserving_ someone's humanity.

 **xv. Russia, 1570**

It occurs to her, later, that she'd never caught the man's name.

She brings it up at breakfast the following morning and, much to her amusement, he sheepishly apologizes.

Then, he tells her, his.

And, in return, she tells him, hers.

"It's a beautiful name," he says to her.

She can't help but smile at that.

 **xvi. Russia, 1617**

She wakes up to the stench of pooled blood.

The odor isn't pungent, though. Rather, it's stale. A diluted smell for desensitized nostrils.

But when she notices the corpse in front of her, her agony is anything but.

It's not fair, after all, when a banished man is murdered.

It's not fair, after all, when a happy man is murdered.

And it's certainly not fair when the love of one's life is murdered.

So, she screams. A wailing cry that's sorrow reaches the very ends of the earth.

' _I'm sorry my child, but I'm afraid you've been fooled!'_

Because now, she understands why that nun had wished to die.

 **xvii. Russia, 1618**

She realizes, later, that things could have been different.

The irony, after all, that geass could've protected him is just too perfect to miss.

But even so, the snow has made her too numb to care.

 **xviii. Russia, 1642**

It occurs to her, today, that she's turning two-hundred.

Perhaps her adolescent self would have marveled at the idea. Of living past thirty.

But now, she only sees the age as a reminder of her inhumanity.

She decides on a new name, then.

C.C – Two centuries.

It helps her to forget that she'd ever wished to be human.

 **xix. England, 1700**

She's heard about the New World.

About its riches.

About its opportunity.

About its possibility.

But this is the first she's heard about successful settlements.

She decides to take it as another invitation.

 **xx. Virginia, 1776**

She finds him spearheading a rally, one morning.

He talks of liberty.

Justice.

Equality.

And his wish to make everyone feel human.

Eventually, she decides that this man, Washington, deserves a power fit for a king.

Though this time, she makes it clear that it would come with a price.

 **xxi. Virginia, 1781**

He's dying. Of that, she is certain.

Despite the righteousness of his dream and the greatness of his power, his rebellion is positively finished.

He turns to her then, wistful blue eyes meeting stoic amber.

"You know… You never did tell me what the terms of our contract were."

She doesn't cry. It would be unbefitting of a witch to do so.

' _I'm sorry my child, but I'm afraid you've been fooled!'_

But she doesn't have the heart to fool him, either.

 **xxii. Belgium, 1821**

It was satisfying, she admits, when the British Isles were conquered.

It was satisfying, she admits, when Europe was united.

But while Napoleon's ideals may have paralleled Washington's, the underlying decadence was impossible to ignore.

When he's defeated at Waterloo, she doesn't feel much.

Well, other than regret that she didn't have the chance to fool him.

 **xxiii. Italy, 1900**

One of the advantages of Napoleon's conquest, she realizes in hindsight, is the intertwinement of cultures.

There's simply so much diversity.

So much open-mindedness.

So much pizza.

Yes, it's the little things in life, she decides, that will keep her going.

It's a sentiment that she could have used four-hundred years ago, after all.

 **xxiv. Area 1, 1990**

She notices her amethyst eyes, first.

Then, she listens to her dream. A dream meant to keep humanity in a state of perpetual empathy.

"As a commoner, people think I'm less than human." The woman says evenly. "I seek to prove them wrong."

She only hesitates for a second before initiating the contract with Marianne.

 **xxv. Area 1, 1998**

When she meets Charles, she's slightly disappointed.

Unlike Marianne, his eyes demand obedience, not confidence.

The boy next to him, however, is so much more intriguing.

He's still younger than her, yes. But he's proof that other Code Bearers exist.

And, when she hears of his ideals, she realizes he's too calloused to care about the fate of his contractees.

Truly, she doesn't know whether to feel envy or pity.

 **xxvi. France, 2000**

Director C.C, she supposes, has a nice ring to it.

She's not one for cults, but the safety the title brings her is comforting, to say the least.

Her only concerns are the flashbacks that grace her subconscious.

They warn her of what happened the last time she held this much power.

What happened the last time she was in France.

 **xxvii. Area 1, 2010**

The two's exile, she knows, is unfair. Cruel, even.

But in their parents' eyes, it's all for the sake of Ragnarok.

When she resigns from the Geass Order, she says it's because of Marianne's inability to fulfill her contract.

Her subliminal self, however, says it's because of her contractee's ineptitude as a mother.

 **xxviii. Chinese Federation, 2014**

Contracting Mao, she realizes, was one of her biggest mistakes.

There was no basis for the action.

No reason.

No principle.

There was only the petty desire to see if she could do Marianne one better.

' _I'm sorry my child, but I'm afraid you've been fooled!'_

She should have known that she'd been much too old and much too tired, to play homage to the role of mother.

 **xxix. Area 11, 2017**

There's something about his eyes, she notes.

They're different from Marianne's and Charles's – even though they share the same hue. But she can't quite understand why until he's up against the wall, with a gun pointed at his head.

She takes the bullet, then.

"He mustn't die!"

Because when she sees him, she realizes that she sees someone else from Russia, four-hundred years ago.

 **xxx. World of C, 2018**

"I know your true wish, C.C! You don't want to die, you want to be loved!"

She smiles at that. A soft, sad smile that speaks more than words can ever dream of.

Because he's right. So painfully right that she can't help but lock herself into her mind to reconcile her past.

But he's also wrong. So heartbreakingly wrong; because she knows that love doesn't translate back to humanity.

000

 **France, 2018**

She had told him, once it was over, that she would go back to the place where it all started.

The church is bigger than she remembered, though. Testament to renovations and technology of the modern era. But even so, she kneels in the front of the alley and prays.

She prays for the sake of humanity.

She prays for the future of the world.

And, most importantly, she prays for the man who was responsible for all of it.

Because finally, she understands that witches and demons can be human too.

' _I'm sorry my child, but I'm afraid you've been fooled!'_

She only sheds one tear though, because she knows that she'll never be fooled again.

* * *

Author's Note

I came up with the initial idea for this one-shot after trying to write in C.C's POV for Pawnless. No matter what I did, I always felt that I came up short in capturing the mind of the "green-haired witch." So, to rectify it, I wrote a sort of character study that took the shape of a story.

If this does get a good response though, I may consider doing more of these "backstories" with other CG characters under the same style. That's why this is an ongoing story, not a complete one.

In any case, Pawnless updates are still in the works, so don't fret about that. I don't know when the next chapter will be coming out yet, but the project is most assuredly active.


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